Al- surnames of Carcar

Al- surnames of Carcar

Throughout the country, when talk comes around to how surnames were given out in the implementation of the Claveria Decree, the conventional wisdom was that a letter was supposed to have been assigned to each town, many times resulting in the surnames of the town to all start with the same letter, a fact that Bureau of Records Management Director Domingo Abella himself acknowledged, citing the Bicol region in his 1973 introduction to the National Archives publication of a copy of the catálogo de apellidos. So, what I discovered for Carcar came as a pleasant surprise.

Despite the preponderance of surnames in the town that start with “Al-“, Carcar did not exactly follow that alleged pattern, like what probably happened in Oas, Albay, where the “R” surnames reigned supreme.

But on the list below, the Carcar surnames that do start with “Al-“ therein include only those that already appeared in the earliest books, surnames that we may claim – assume — to have been originally given out in Carcar. Thus, nowhere in it are many other Al- surnames, found and even plentiful in Carcar at present, but which seems to have been later arrivals. This means the owners must have received the surnames from their own hometowns and not in Carcar.

Some of these later-arrivals would be Albarracin, Albrando, Alcarez, Alfeche, Alferez, Alforque, Alicaba, Alicaway, Aliño, Alquizola, Alquizalas and many more.

On the other end of the spectrum, there are Carcar comers but who’d arrived before the Claveria decree of 1849 and we can presume, using the alphabetical criteria, that they’d also received their surnames in Carcar and, so, these families are included on this list. These families would include some mestizos Sangleys from Parian (Alcorcon, Alcudia, Aldocente) the Alegrado from Cebu City and Aldave from San Nicolas, as well as the Bohol families (Aldemita, Aleguin, Aleguiojo, Alemios, Aleonar, Alfafaras, etc. the last which cannot be found in Carcar any longer).

Most of these Al- families originated around the old localities Mulag, Mantaoñgon, Cabancalan, Cabongcolan of what is now Guadalupe, that area straddling Carcar and Barili. Because of which historical basis may have given rise to the thought (common in Carcar): Are all Al- families related?

But I wouldn’t venture so far as to say: yes, all of them. In fact, we can immediately eliminate from the kinship those Al- families in the above paragraph, they whom we can categorically determine to have originated from outside Carcar.

And what about the rest? Of course, maybe. After 4 generations, people would have lost track of their pedigree (except to say “maybe” — pariente kunó) and even if the residents of one big area may actually have been the fourth or fifth generation descendants of a single couple who originally transplanted themselves there in the mid-1700s, who knows now, but this very lack of genealogical memory could have had resulted in the town officials (priest, gobernadorcillo, cabezas) assigning different (but all starting with Al-) Claveria surnames to these individuals in 1850. Even if they may have been just one family. As to the obviously older families — Alcos, Alcoseba, Alcover, Alcuesar, Aldaya, Aledo, Alegado, Alegarbes, Alejado, Alesna, Aleson, etc., etc. — who can now say?

Related

Responses

Aloha,

I’m trying to find out about the Aledo family and it’s ties to Spain. My grandfather’s name was Ciriaco Aledo. He was from Carcar, Cebu and was born around 1893. At 25 years old, He set sail to Hawaii to work on the sugar plantations and lived there ever since. I would like to know who his siblings were, his parents and grandparents names, and the extended families as well. Also, are all Aledos related?

before going further, let me answer the first part of your query. i don’t think there is any legitimate tie with spain. my basis for that is that the earliest ancestors did not have surnames, which they’d have had had they been spanish or some other foreign natives already with surnames. our surnames weren’t given to us until 1850 in the implementation of the claveria (gov-gen) decree of nov 1849.

Kumusta ka
It’s good to see Audrey Aledo’s posting about the Aledo/Alido family. Several years ago I also posted questions about the Aledo families of Carcar, Cebu, Philippines.
Do you know of any way that we could obtain contact information for any Aledo’s in the Philippines, who might be willing to share Aledo family stories, histories, ancestral lines, etc.?
Thank you,
Markus

By: Markus on November 27, 2013 at 7:11 am

still waiting to know the roots of Alenton family . was the original name Alino or Alineo .

the alenton family of carcar appear to all have originated from talisay. the earliest timeframe may have been around 1860s, thus we may suspect that the surname, even though it jives with the al- surnames of carcar, was given in talisay.